Potatoes and White Mold (Sclerothinia )

This.

This white mold, or sclerothinia is what I was worried about.

We are damp anyway on our little island anyway. Add a super dry spring which made plants susceptible to disease, and then add 175mm rain, and that my friends, leads to moldy potato plant stems and blight.

We are downright soggy right now.

I hauled all these plants even though they hadn’t flowered. The 100 lbs plus of potatoes were just fine, in fact they were great. A little bit of decreased yield. About 2.5-3 lbs per plant rather than four lbs.

I did haul them though because if you leave them, the millions of mold spores get into your soil and stay there for years.

So I harvested and cut my losses.

Now I amend these beds with a bit of compost, add some sulfur, replant with late season storage potatoes Yukon and Russet, and add eel grass for mulch.

And next year I will rotate this crop to another area of the garden.

My mid season potatoes seem to be doing just fine. No mold, but they were stronger as they escaped the drought.

Gardening is all about pivoting.

We can’t control the weather, but we can figure out how to grow as if there is no plan b.

Love Jenn xx

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